on Pancultural self-enhancement.pdf

Tactical Self-Enhancement and Psychological Adjustment 1 Running head: TACTICAL SELF-ENHANCEMENT AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ADJUSTMENT On Pancultural Self-Enhancement: Well-Adjusted Taiwanese Self-Enhance on Personally-Valued Traits Lowell Gaertner University of Tennessee Constantine Sedikides University of Southampton Kirk Chang University of Cumbria Tactical Self-Enhancement and Psychological Adjustment 2 Abstract Taiwanese participants made better-than-average judgments on collectivistic and individualistic traits, evaluated the personal importance of those traits, and completed measures of psychological adjustment (depression, perceived stress, subjective well being, and satisfaction with life). Replicating findings from other East Asian samples, participants self-enhanced (i.e., regarded the self as superior to peers) more on collectivistic than individualistic attributes, and assigned higher personal importance to the former than the latter. Moreover, better adjusted participants manifested a stronger tendency to self-enhance on personally important attributes. These data are consistent with the view that self-enhancement is a universal human motive that is expressed tactically and at odds with the assertion that self-enhancement is a uniquely Western phenomenon. Tactical Self-Enhancement and Psychological Adjustment 3 On Pancultural Self-Enhancement: Well-Adjusted Taiwanese Self-Enhance on Personally-Valued Traits People strive for self-positivity. Stated somewhat differently, people are motivated to think well of themselves relative to others. Self-superiority beliefs come in abundance and are aptly demonstrated by the so-called better-than-average effect: People rate themselves as better- than-average on a variety of personality traits and abilities (Alicke Govorun, 2005). The motive to increase self-positivity is known as self-enhancement. It is pervasive, and we consider it